No Big Ships
By Iulia Boșcu & Will Gresson
This story starts with a chance encounter and ends with a dedication.
It concerns a series of travels to the city of Venice, Italy between 2009-2019, and what it means to carve out space for yourself in a complicated environment. This sound work was created using manipulated and augmented field recordings from the streets and canals of the city, passing underneath lines of laundry strung across narrow calli while the sounds of radios and televisions filter through open shutters. It is influenced by small personal moments witnessed within the framework of a significant historical space, quite literally sinking beneath the weight of its past.
‘No Big Ships’ is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Dean Roberts (1975-2024).
It concerns a series of travels to the city of Venice, Italy between 2009-2019, and what it means to carve out space for yourself in a complicated environment. This sound work was created using manipulated and augmented field recordings from the streets and canals of the city, passing underneath lines of laundry strung across narrow calli while the sounds of radios and televisions filter through open shutters. It is influenced by small personal moments witnessed within the framework of a significant historical space, quite literally sinking beneath the weight of its past.
‘No Big Ships’ is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Dean Roberts (1975-2024).
First it was dark,
Then came the word.
Creation started with a sound
Then came the word.
Creation started with a sound
- something so ephemeral you might miss it before you know it
sound is produced when things vibrate, when the particles in a
medium are forced out of a state of rest - a subtle energy to
move through the dense, linking beings in the dark.
sound is produced when things vibrate, when the particles in a
medium are forced out of a state of rest - a subtle energy to
move through the dense, linking beings in the dark.
Spying through the blinds
In my imagination the day's already passed
Walking home with the crescent moon at my back
Promise you won't tell yourself
The secrets I tell you
Your words are cold
but are not ours
I want to develop myself to sleepMy mind adorned with stones
Your heart entombed in flowers
We held a whole world in our minds
But it was rarely the one we lived in
I can't see the way back
I wouldn't recognise the way back
After the fear and the flesh are gone
What else do you know
What you salvage daily of yourself
Casting circles of protection in a bathroom cubicle
wondering where it all went wrong
Deep breath
Exhale deeper
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What else do you know
What you salvage daily of yourself
Casting circles of protection in a bathroom cubicle
wondering where it all went wrong
Deep breath
Exhale deeper
The future is in constant motion
Exhale deeper
It was alway a means to an end
It was never meant to be the end
Exhale deeper
"Take a walk at night, walk so silently that the bottom of your feet become ears"
Pauline Oliveros - Sonic Meditation V
without appeal is an artist collective established in 2016 by Will Gresson (b. 1987, Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa) and Iulia Boscu (b. 1990, Galati, Romania). Working across multiple disciplines, the pair have undertaken projects involving visual art, publishing and performance, the most recent of which have focused on climate and environmental tensions. Documentation of previous projects, including recent exhibitions in Tāmaki Makaurau and Cluj-Napoca earlier this year, can be found at withoutappeal.org.
